Saturday, April 19, 2003 |

The Map is Not the Terrain

I attended a concert of Turkish music at Fools' Paradise with Mahmut Genceli tonight. The music was beautiful, touching and varied. It also brought up something that has been in my mind for quite a while as it points to a gap between my views and actions.

I asked him if he had a CD with his music, upon which he reminded me that canned music is similar to canned food, or photography. It is all dead representations of what was an alive moment. An attempt to hold onto something that is no longer. A symptom of a culture of alienation, where we value the canned representations of interactions among people, and often do not engage in those interactions ourselves.

These are all amazing people who's work is profoundly inspiring and exiting to me. They are among those who see and are manifesting the initial phases of a deep cultural shift that integrates ecological sustainability, social equity, a consistent partnership approach (no enemies), arts, open source ethics (freely sharing information), and fun!